In a 60 Minutes report on the botched child-abduction saga in Lebanon, Channel Nine reporter Michael Usher admitted mistakes were made.
“In the past two weeks we’ve been limited in what we could say about Australian mum Sally Faulkner and our crew detained in Beirut,” he said in a report for the Nine Network.
“There’s one thing we want to state very clearly from the outset — we made mistakes.”
"It was a failure, which ended very badly for everyone involved," he said, adding that an investigation into the editorial approval process and the actions of the crew began on Friday.
"Our role in reporting Sally's desperate efforts to be reunited with Lahela and Noah are now the subject of a lot of soul searching here at Channel Nine," he said.
Reporter Tara Brown, who returned home to Australia with Sally Faulkner, Benjamin Williamson, David Ballment and Stephen Rice last week, said the team were "just journalists doing our job".
"I really thought we're journalists, we're doing our job, they will see reason, they'll understand that," she said.
"That we are here just to do a story on a very, very desperate mother."
The report also showed footage of Sally Faulkner being reunited with her mother, brother, partner Brendan and three-month-old son Eli in Brisbane.
Faulkner recounted the emotional experience of saying goodbye to her children, five-year-old Lahela and three-year-old Noah. "Lahela, she looked at me and she said 'mummy take my ring', she gave me her little ring, she said 'so you don't forget me'," she said.
While a deal struck with the children's father Ali el-Amine last week saw Sally Faulkner and the 60 Minutes crew released from prison (members of the "child recovery agency" remain incarcerated), they may still face charges for their actions.
ABC reports that the court has been provided with a document, which shows that Channel Nine paid Adam Whittington, the head of Child Abduction Recovery International, for his investigation into the missing children.
Top Comments
"mistakes were made."
No sh*t, Sherlock.
60minutes should never have been involved, they didn't care about the mum and kids, all they cared about was the ratings and money. So whilst they get to go home to their children, saying 'oops, we made mistakes' Sophie is without her children for the foreseeable future.